Bearclaw Valley pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers

He saw the fear in her gaze and his ears shoved forward, glancing around immediately to check their surroundings. When he found nothing, his eyes settled back on her, brows pinched together with concern. Her whines brought forth one of his own, low and uncertain, but he did not think his intentions to be bad ones. And as she drew closer to him, he turned his head towards her so that he could deliver a quick, reassuring lick across the bridge of her muzzle—I’ll keep you safe. Just as quick as he touched her he was facing forward again, taken several slow steps as he set the pace for their trip, giving her time to adjust. He wanted to protect her and keep all horrid events from ever finding her again, even if it might someday cost him his life; it was why he existed—to lead the valley and protect all of those within it, especially those that he cared so strongly for.

Alexander kept his pace slow as they moved, guiding her along before finally stopping at what appeared to be nothing more than a mound in the otherwise flattened valley. It was not as risen from the earth as it once was, washed away and made to collapse so long ago by a great flood—but he still recognised it and, though there was not a single scent of his childhood there any longer, felt his heart ache with longing over the sight of it. It was different now, the once destroyed den’s exterior smoothed out by nature and covered in a fine layer of grass. The young evergreens that once grew near it were fuller now, aged through the few years just as he had.

And out of the corner of his eye, he swore he saw a ghost, her coat as pale as his and eyes a striking crimson—but when he turned to look, she was gone, nothing more than a figment of his imagination.

Shaking his head, he swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and took a step closer to his mother’s old whelping den. “I was born here,” he shared, stealing a glance in her direction. “In this valley, in this den… I want our, uh… our kids born here, too.” It was hard to get the sentence out, a part of him still unable to accept that there was any truth to it—Xan, a father? Ridiculous. With another shake of his head—these thoughts were pesky ones, certain to someday drive him mad with worry—he moved away from her and placed his paws against an indentation in the earth, where once an entrance was. And without another word he began to dig, ignoring the protests of the thawing ground as he worked to dig into it, just the same as his mother once had.